MARK THOMAS GIBSON (1980 - )
He Said with a Smirk.

Oil on cotton canvas, 2013. 1524x1016 mm; 60x40 inches. Signed, titled and inscribed "Mark Thomas Gibson", "Oil on Canvas" and "60"x40' inches" in ink, upper left verso.

Provenance: Fredericks and Freiser, New York; private collection, Chicago.

This striking image of Benjamin Franklin painted in black on black reflects Mark Thomas Gibson's distinctive synthesis of American culture and history in his painting. Gibson's portrait critically examines how the "Founding Fathers" and portraits of American history have been over-simplified. In 2013, he also painted a series of fantastical black on black paintings on the subject of the battle of the Alamo for his first solo exhibition Alamo Revenant, held at Fredericks and Freiser, New York.

Born in Miami, FL, Mark Thomas Gibson received his BFA from The Cooper Union in 2002 and his MFA from Yale School of Art in 2013. In 2016, Gibson co-curated the traveling exhibition Black Pulp! with William Villalongo, and has published two artist books, Some Monsters Loom Large (2016) and Early Retirement (2017). In 2021, Gibson was awarded residencies at Yaddo and the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency. He was awarded a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia, PA and a Hodder Fellowship from Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Gibson was most recently awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, NY and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Grant from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, NY. His most recent solo exhibitions were at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University in 2022 and Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in 2023.